Even Speech We Hate Should Be Free

[tritsofme]

In any debate today about how to respond to “offensive” or “inflammatory” speech, it is only a matter of time before somebody trots out that most familiar of talking points. “There is no right,” the opiner will say, “to shout fire in a crowded theater!”

Taken from a 1919 Supreme Court decision by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the fire-in-a-crowded-theater standard seldom gets much scrutiny. It tends to shut down discussion rather than to open it up. But that shouldn’t be—it is a flame well worth extinguishing.

First, its meaning has been inflated and distorted beyond recognition.

<snip>

There should never be any constraint on that sort of debate, however heated. We always need more speech rather than less to clarify arguments and to let people choose their own idea of the truth.

<snip>

http://www.wsj.com/articles/even-speech-we-hate-should-be-free-1440165276

Great piece, for years I have seen the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" analogy abused by speech restrictionists as a false justification for suppressing speech.

The right's disdain for free speech has been well known for eons. But it has been absolutely disturbing over the last few years to see a similar movement emerge on the left, and even here at DU, that advocates shutting down distasteful speech, largely based on the false analogy of "shouting fire in a crowded theater."

I find the little authoritarians that hide behind these justifications to be very scary indeed.

[Bluenorthwest]

1. The people who advocate that on DU are not the left, they are religious based authoritarians

who work in a few lefty or Democratic buzz words or positions to grease their way along.

[Fred Sanders]

2. "The little authoritarians" of the left, you say....as you hail an opinion from the fascist RW WSJ....funny stuff!

Great satire!

[Nye Bevan]

3. The overwhelming majority of DU opposes "hate speech" laws.

And anyone who does not should think about just how quickly Southern Evangelical District Attorneys would rush to prosecute people for "insulting Christianity" if such laws could be enacted.